A full field of 96 players have had great conditions for the Lamb & Hayward Canterbury Stroke Play played at the Waitikiri Golf Club. Players were treated with not only great weather over the weekend but also playing a course which was in excellent condition which was a credit to the green keeping staff given the amount of rain the course has had in the weeks leading up to the event.
The field was strengthened with over thirty entries from outside the region, predominately due to the enhanced initiative formed with Otago and Southland Golf this year which has built on the success of last year's House of Travel Tour. The 2018 House of Travel Tour includes the Canterbury, Otago and Southland Stroke Play events being held over the next four weeks with travel vouchers to the value of $3250 being awarded for the best nine round scores for all three events for Open Men, Open Women and the best U19 Boy.
The Men's Open section was closely fought with Dominic Brettkelly (Hororata) and Kazuma Kobori (Rangiora) finishing tied on 212. A sudden death playoff took place with Dominic Brettkelly prevailing on the second playoff hole to win the title.
Dominic Brettkelly was also the winner of the inaugural Ron Clement Memorial Trophy which was presented by Ron's wife Rae and daughter Tracy. Ron Clements was heavily involved in the development of junior golf and so it is fitting that this year we now have the Ron Clements Memorial Trophy which is awarded for the best U19 Boy's score at the Canterbury Stroke Play. Ron had a very long list of achievements throughout his career in particular he was part of the winning Canterbury Team, which included Bob Charles, that won the NZ Freyberg (now know as the NZ Men's Interprovincials) in 1957, 1962 and 1965. Ron also won the Canterbury Stroke Play title four times. After playing 100 representative games for Canterbury Ron announced his retirement to make room for the promising junior players to achieve higher honours.
Russley's Juliana Hung won the Women's Open section with rounds of 75, 69, 68 on 10 under par six shots clear of defending champion Jeonghyun Lee with Vivan Lu (Royal Auckland) in third place.
The Men's Masters title was won by Blair Dibley (Harewood) who had won the title in 2016. Dibley finished on 221 four shots ahead of runner up Brett Turner with Aaron Forsyth in third place both from the Waitikiri Golf Club.
The Women's Masters section was won by Robyn Pullar (Invercargill) on 242, six shots clear of Waitikiri's Kim Moggach and Joanne Kent (Rangiora) in third place.
The winners are pictured with the sponsor from Lamb & Hayward Stephen Parkyn from left Juliana Hung, Blair Dibley, Stephen Parkyn (Lamb & Hayward), Dominic Brettkelly and Robyn Pullar.
Click the links below to view the full results for each section.
